$99 AAMCO Transmission Flush Questions

[Rhett]

Thanks Rhett - that is an awesome writeup. However now I REALLY want to pay to have it done!

Naaah! A little tranny fluid in the face is good for ya!
Last time I did it, I dropped the pan, took old filter out, then put pan back on.
Duh! I forgot to put a new filter in, and only realized it after I had tightened all the pan bolts.

I was inventing new words the last time I did it...

 

[Opera House]

A little true, a little myth. Depends what you find in the pan. For everything in the pan, there is twice as much still n the transmission. Many transmissions still just have metal screens theat won't filter anything out. My transmission had really nasty fluid in it @106K and a lot of sediment. It took a number of pan drops to get this sediment out, but now it is clean. 156K and three years later everything is still fine. I wouldn't think twice about changing the fluid on any transmission. It is the sediment not the fluid that causes the problem. I would never put a vehicle on a flush machine.

 

[aldive]

I would never put a vehicle on a flush machine.

How do you feel about letting the tranny pump the fluid out to "flush" it?

 

[Opera House]

A hose isn't a machine. I've done the pump out method many times. Adding an external filter is another good suggestion with a high mileage transmission. I put one on my 97 for about a year and a half. Had a leak and I recently removed it because it was in a near impossible position to get at. It was the expedient thing to do. I'm going to weld up a SS 2 quart tube instead of the filter and getting an ovesize pan. For those who don't want to drill, www.bulkpart.com has inline filters (like the gas filter).

 

[BradE.]

What tranny do I have in a 2000 XLT 5.0 AWD? All that was listed on the www.bulkpart.com was:

Explorer 1991-94 A4LD
Explorer 1995-98 4R44E/4R55E

You have the 4R70W trans. That model tranny has a drain on the torque converter and a rubber plug to access it on the bell housing. So, you can drain it out without doing the hose/flush method if you don't want too and still remove a good bit of the fluid when coupled with a pan drop. A filter change on a 4R70W isn't that bad if you do it correctly, I did it on my Town Car in under 20 minutes.